Amerigo Vespucci

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[Transcriber's Note: Every effort has been made to replicate this
text as faithfully as possible, including obsolete and variant
spellings and other inconsistencies. Text that has been changed to
correct an obvious error by the publisher is noted at the end of this
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AMERIGO VESPUCCI

BY

FREDERICK A. OBER

HEROES OF AMERICAN HISTORY

_ILLUSTRATED_

[Illustration]

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
1907

Copyright, 1907, by HARPER & BROTHERS.

_All rights reserved._

Published February, 1907.

[Illustration: AMERIGO VESPUCCI]

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

I. YOUNG AMERIGO AND HIS FAMILY 1

II. AMERIGO'S FRIENDS AND TEACHERS 15

III. VESPUCCI'S FAVORITE AUTHORS 32

IV. IN THE SERVICE OF SPAIN 45

V. CONVERSATIONS WITH COLUMBUS 59

VI. VESPUCCI'S DEBATABLE VOYAGE 76

VII. VESPUCCI'S "SECOND" VOYAGE 101

VIII. WITH OJEDA THE FIGHTER 126

IX. CANNIBALS, GIANTS, AND PEARLS 138

X. FAMOUS FELLOW-VOYAGERS 148

XI. ON THE COAST OF BRAZIL 165

XII. THE "FOURTH PART OF THE EARTH" 179

XIII. THE FOURTH GREAT VOYAGE 194

XIV. KING FERDINAND'S FRIEND 209

XV. PILOT-MAJOR OF SPAIN 221

XVI. HOW AMERICA WAS NAMED 237

ILLUSTRATIONS

AMERIGO VESPUCCI _Frontispiece_

A CONJECTURAL RESTORATION OF
TOSCANELLI'S MAP _Facing p._ 20

MARCO POLO " 40

OJEDA'S FIRST VOYAGE " 130

ROUTES OF THE DISCOVERERS " 166

NORTH AMERICA FROM THE GLOBE OF
JOHANN SCHOeNER " 244

AUTHORITIES ON AMERIGO VESPUCCI

XVIth CENTURY. Vespucci's letters to Soderini and L. P. F. de' Medici,
reproduced in this volume.

XVIIth CENTURY. Herrera, in his _Historia General_ (etc.), Madrid,
1601; "probably followed Las Casas, whose MSS. he had."

XVIIIth CENTURY. Dandini, A. M., _Vita e Lettere di Amerigo Vespucci_,
Florence, 1745.

Canovai, Stanislac, _Elogia di Amerigo Vespucci_, 1778.

XIXth CENTURY. Navarrete, M. F. de, _Noticias Exactas de Americo
Vespucio_, contained in his Coleccion, Madrid, 1825-1837.

Humboldt, Alexander von, _Examen Critique de l'Histoire de la
Geographie de Nouveau Continent_, Paris, 1836-1839.

Lester, C. Edwards, _The Life and Voyages of Americus Vespucius_, New
York, 1846; reprinted, in de luxe edition, New York, 1903.

Varnhagen, F. A., Baron de Porto Seguro, _Amerigo Vespucci, son
Caractere, ses Ecrits_ (etc.), Lima, 1865; Vienna, 1874. A collection
of monographs called by Fiske "the only intelligent modern treatise on
the life and voyages of this navigator."

Fiske, John, _The Discovery of America_, Boston, 1899; contains an
exhaustive critical examination of Vespucci's voyages to which the
reader should refer for more extended information.

AMERIGO VESPUCCI[1]

I

YOUNG AMERIGO AND HIS FAMILY

1451-1470

Cradled in the valley of the Arno, its noble architecture fitly
supplementing its numerous natural charms, lies the Tuscan city of
Florence, the birthplace of immortal Dante, the early home of Michael
Angelo, the seat of the Florentine Medici, the scene of Savonarola's
triumphs and his tragic end. Fame has come to many sons of Florence,
as poets, statesmen, sculptors, painters, travellers; but perhaps none
has achieved a distinction so unique, apart, and high as the subject
of this volume, after whom the continents of the western hemisphere
were named.

Amerigo Vespucci was born in Florence, March 9, 1451, just one hundred
and fifty years after Dante was banished from the city in which both
first saw the light. The Vespucci family had then resided in that city
more than two hundred years, having come from Peretola, a little town
adjacent, where the name was highly regarded, as attached to the most
respected of the Italian nobility. Following the custom of that
nobility, during the period of unrest in Italy, the Vespuccis
established themselves in a stately mansion near one of the city
gates, which is known as the Porta del Prato. Thus they were within
touch of the gay society of Florence, and could enjoy its advantages,
while at the same time in a position, in the event of an uprising, to
flee to their estates and stronghold in the country.

While the house in which Christopher Columbus was born remains
unidentified, and the year of his birth undecided, no such ambiguity
attaches to the place and year of Vespucci's nativity. Above the
doorway of the mansion which "for centuries before the discovery of
America was the dwelling-place of the ancestors of Amerigo Vespucci,
and his own birthplace," a marble tablet was placed, in the second
decade of the eighteenth century, bearing the following inscription:

"_To AMERICO VESPUCCIO, a noble Florentine,
Who, by the discovery of AMERICA,
Rendered his own and his Country's name illustrious,
[As] the AMPLIFIER OF THE WORLD.
Upon this ancient mansion of the VESPUCCI,
Inhabited by so great a man,
The holy fathers of Saint John of God
Have placed this Tablet, sacred to his memory._
A.D. 1719."

At that time, about midway between the date of Vespucci's death and
the present, the evidence was strong and continuous as to the
residence in that building (which was then used as a hospital) of the
family whose name it commemorates. Here was born, in 1451, the third
son of Anastasio and Elizabetta Vespucci, whose name, whether rightly
or not, was to be bestowed upon a part of the world at that time
unknown.

The Vespuccis were then aristocrats, with a long and boasted lineage,
but without great wealth to support their pretensions. They were
relatively poor; they were proud; but they were not ashamed to engage
in trade. Some of their ancestors had filled the highest offices
within the gift of the state, such as _prioris_ and _gonfalonieres_,
or magistrates and chief magistrates, while the first of the Vespuccis
known to have borne the praenomen Amerigo was a secretary of the
republic in 1336.

It is incontestable that Amerigo Vespucci was well-born, and in his
youth received the advantages of an education more thorough than was
usually enjoyed by the sons of families which had "the respectability
of wealth acquired in trade," and even the prestige of noble
connections. No argument is needed to show that the position of a
Florentine merchant was perfectly compatible with great
respectability, for the Medici themselves, with the history of whose
house that of Florence is bound up most intimately, were merchant
princes. The vast wealth they acquired in their mercantile operations
in various parts of Europe enabled them to pose as patrons of art and
literature, and supported their pretensions to sovereign power. The
Florentine Medici attained to greatest eminence during the latter
half of the century in which Amerigo Vespucci was born, and he was
acquainted both with Cosimo, that "Pater Patriae, who began the
glorious epoch of the family," and with "Lorenzo the Magnificent," who
died in 1492.

The Florentines, in fact, were known as great European traders or
merchants as early as the eleventh century, while their bankers and
capitalists not only controlled the financial affairs of several
states, or nations, but exerted a powerful influence in the realm of
statesmanship and diplomacy. The little wealth the Vespucci enjoyed at
the time of Amerigo's advent was derived from an ancestor of the
century previous, who, besides providing endowments for churches and
hospitals, left a large fortune to his heirs. His monument may be seen
within the chapel built by himself and his wife, and it bears this
inscription, in old Gothic characters: "The tomb of Simone Piero
Vespucci, a merchant, and of his children and descendants, and of his
wife, who caused this chapel to be erected and decorated--for the
salvation of her soul. Anno Dom. 1383."

The immediate ancestors, then, of Amerigo Vespucci were highly
respectable, and they were honorable, having held many positions of
trust, with credit to themselves and profit to the state. At the time
of Amerigo's birth his father, Anastasio Vespucci, was secretary of
the Signori, or senate of the republic; an uncle, Juliano, was
Florentine ambassador at Genoa; and a cousin, Piero Vespucci, so ably
commanded a fleet of galleys despatched against the corsairs of the
Barbary coast that he was sent as ambassador to the King of Naples, by
whom he was specially honored.

Another member of the family, one Guido Antonio, became locally famous
as an expounder of the law and a diplomat. Respecting him an epitaph
was composed, the last two lines of which might, if applied to
Amerigo, have seemed almost prophetic:

"_Here lies GUIDO ANTONIO, in this sepulchre--
HE WHO SHOULD LIVE FOREVER,
Or else never have seen the light._"

This epitaph was written of the lawyer, who departed unknown and
unwept by the world, while his then obscure kinsman, Amerigo,
subsequently achieved a fame that filled the four quarters of the
earth.

The youth of Amerigo is enshrouded in the obscurity which envelops
that of the average boy in whatever age, for no one divined that he
would become great or famous, and hence he was not provided with a
biographer. This is unfortunate, of course, but we must console
ourselves with the thought that he was not unusually precocious, and
probably said little that would be considered worth preserving. It
happened that after he became world-large in importance, tales and
traditions respecting his earliest years crept out in abundance; but
these may well be looked upon with suspicion. We know scarcely more
than that his early years were happy, for he had a loving mother, and
a father wise enough to direct him in the way he should travel.

It does not always follow that the course the father prescribes is the
best one in the end, for sometimes a boy develops in unsurmised
directions; and this was the case with Amerigo Vespucci. The fortunes
of the family being on the wane, he was selected as the one to
retrieve them, and of four sons was the only one who did not receive a
college education. The other three were sent to the University of
Pisa, whence they returned with their "honors" thick upon them, and
soon lapsed into obscurity, from which they never emerged. That is,
they never "made a mark" in the world; save one brother, Girolamo, who
made a pilgrimage to Palestine, where he lived nine years, suffered
much, and lost what little fortune he carried with him.

He may have thought, perhaps, in after years, that if he had not
belonged to a family containing the world-famed navigator his exploits
would have brought him reputation; but it is more probable that if he
had not written a letter to his younger brother, Amerigo, the world
would never have heard from him at all. However, he was the first
traveller in the family, and with his university education he should
have produced a good account of his adventures; but if he ever did so
it has not been preserved from oblivion.

Amerigo was not given a college education, but something--as it
eventuated--vastly better. His father had a brother, a man of
erudition for his time, who had studied for the Church. This learned
uncle, Georgio Antonio Vespucci, was then a Dominican friar, respected
in Florence for his piety and for his learning. About the year 1450,
or not long before Amerigo was born, he opened a school for the sons
of nobles, and in the garb of a monk pursued the calling of the
preceptor. His fame was such that the school was always full, yet when
his brother's child, Amerigo, desired to attend, having arrived at the
age for receiving the rudiments of an education, he was greeted
cordially and given a place in one of the lower classes. It may be
imagined that he would have been favored by his uncle; but such seems
not to have been the case, for the worthy friar was a disciplinarian
first of all. He had ever in mind, however, the kind of education
desired by his brother for Amerigo, which was to be commercial, and
grounded him well in mathematics, languages, cosmography, and
astronomy. His curriculum even embraced, it is said, statesmanship and
the finesse of diplomacy, for the merchants of Vespucci's days were,
like the Venetian consuls, "very important factors in developing
friendly international relations."

There was then a great rivalry between Venice, Florence, Genoa, and
Pisa for the control of trading-posts in the Levant, which carried
with them the vast commerce of the Orient, then conducted by way of
the Mediterranean, the Black, and the Caspian seas, and overland by
caravans with India and China. At the time our hero was growing into
manhood, in the latter half of the fifteenth century, Florence, "under
the brilliant leadership of the Medici and other shrewd merchant
princes, gained control of strategic trading-posts in all parts of the
[then known] world, and secured a practical monopoly in the trade
through Armenia and Rhodes.... It was from banking, however, that
Florence derived most of her wealth. For some time her bankers
controlled the financial markets of the world. Most of the great loans
made by sovereigns during this period, for carrying on wars or for
other purposes, were made through the agency of Florentine bankers.
Even Venetian merchants were glad to appeal to her banks for loans. In
the fifteenth century Florence had eighty great banking-houses, many
of which had branches in every part of the world."[2]

It is evident, therefore, that the sagacious Anastasio Vespucci had
mapped out a great career for the son whom he had chosen to recreate
the fortunes of his house. He was to be a banker, a diplomat;
eventually he might attain, like the greatest of the Medici, to the
station and dignities of a merchant prince. To this end the worthy
Georgio Antonio ever strove, and as he found his nephew a tractable
and studious pupil, he congratulated himself and his family that in
Amerigo they had the individual who was to restore the prestige of
their ancient name.

But alas! the sequel proved that Friar Georgio was too ambitious, and
had overshot the mark. In his desire to turn out a finished product, a
scholar that should be a credit to his school and an ornament to his
family, he not only inculcated the essentials for a commercial
education, but, as has already been mentioned, led his eager follower
into the wider fields of astronomy and cosmography. All he knew--and
that included all the ancients knew--of these abstruse sciences he
imparted to Amerigo, and in the end, so far as we can judge, the young
man became more proficient in them than any other person of his age
and time. So it eventuated that those studies, which were intended
merely as subsidiary to the more serious pursuit, became the prime
factors in shaping his career. They were his stepping-stones to
greatness, as were his mercantile transactions; but, anticipating
somewhat the events of his later life, we shall find that they did not
conduce to the acquisition of wealth.

"In Florence," says the author previously quoted, "more than in any
other Italian city during the Middle Ages, was displayed the direct
influence of commerce upon the developments of all the finer elements
of material and immaterial civilization. She was the Athens of Italy,
and her art, literature, and science was the brightest gleam of
intellectual light that was seen in Europe during that age. It was
from Florence, more than from any other source, that came the
awakening influence known as the Renaissance."

This truth we see exemplified in the formative period of Amerigo
Vespucci's life, for, in order to become qualified to adorn the high
position of a prince of commerce, he was as carefully trained as if to
fill a prelate's chair or grasp the helm of state. So reluctant was
his uncle, the good old monk Georgio, to relinquish his talented
nephew to the world, that we find them in company as late as 1471, as
attested by this letter, written in Latin by Amerigo to his father, in
October of that year:

"_To the Excellent and Honorable Signor Anastasio Vespucci._

"HONORED FATHER,--Do not wonder that I have not written to
you within the last few days. I thought that my uncle would
have satisfied you concerning me, and in his absence I
scarcely dare to address you in the Latin tongue, blushing
even at my deficiencies in my own language. I have, besides,
been industriously occupied of late in studying the rules of
Latin composition, and will show you my book on my return.
Whatever else I have accomplished, and how I have conducted
myself, you will have been able to learn from my uncle,
whose return I ardently desire, that, under his and your own
joint directions, I may follow with greater facility both my
studies and your kind precepts.

"George Antonio, three or four days ago, gave a number of
letters to you to a good priest, Signor Nerotto, to which he
desires your answer. There is nothing else that is new to
relate, unless that we all desire greatly to return to the
city. The day of our return is not yet fixed, but soon will
be, unless the pestilence should increase and occasion
greater alarm, which may God avert!

"He, George Antonio, commends to your consideration a poor
and wretched neighbor of his, whose only reliance and means
are in our house, concerning which he addresses you in full.
He asks you, therefore, that you would attend to his
affairs, so that they may suffer as little as possible in
his absence.

"Farewell, then, honored father. Salute all the family in
my behalf, and commend me to my mother and all my elder
relatives.

"Your son, with due obedience,
"AMERIGO VESPUCCI."[3]

The cause of Amerigo's absence from Florence was, it is said, the
terrible plague which swept over that city and for a time paralyzed
its activities. All who were able fled to the country, and, Friar
Georgio's school having been broken up by the scattering of his
pupils, he and Amerigo retired to their family estate, at or near
Peretola, there to await the subsidence of the epidemic.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] This name is variously spelled, as, for example: Albericus,
Alberico, Almerigo, Americo, Americus, Amerigo; Despuche, Vespuche,
Vespuchy, Vespuccio, Vespucius, Vespucci. The best writers use either
the Italian, Amerigo Vespucci, or the Latinized, Americus Vespucius,
with good authority for both.

[2] From the _General History of Commerce_, by W. C. Webster, Ph.D.

[3] This letter was discovered by Signor Bandini, author of the _Vita
e Lettre di Amerigo Vespucci_, 1745, in the Strozzi Library. Harrisse
says, "This, and two or three signatures added to receipts, which were
brought to light by Navarrete, constitute the only autographs of
Vespucius known."

In the original paper he uses the Latin form, Vespucius; but in a
letter written in 1508, when he was pilot-major of Spain, he signs
himself "Amerigo Vespucci."

II

AMERIGO'S FRIENDS AND TEACHERS

1470-1482

Florence, in Vespucci's day, was the home of genius, of culture, and
of art. Amerigo, doubtless, was acquainted with some of her sons whose
fame, like his own, has endured to the present day, and will last for
all time. The great Michael Angelo, who was born at or near Florence
in 1475, and whose patron was Lorenzo the Magnificent, was his
contemporary, although the artist and sculptor survived the discoverer
more than fifty years. Savonarola, who came to Florence in 1482, was
just a year the junior of Amerigo, and is said to have been an
intimate friend of his uncle, who, like himself, belonged to the
Dominican order. The young man may not have been touched by
Buonarroti's art, nor have been moved by Savonarola's preaching, but,
like the former, he possessed an artistic temperament, and, like the
latter, he was an enthusiast.

The man, however, who, next to his uncle, shaped Amerigo's career and
turned him from trade to exploration, was a learned Florentine named
Toscanelli. If you have followed the fortunes of Christopher Columbus,
reader, you have seen this name before, for it was Toscanelli who, in
the year 1474, sent a letter and a chart to the so-called discoverer
of America, which confirmed him in the impression that a route to
India lay westward from Europe across the "Sea of Darkness."

It is not known just when Amerigo first met "Paul the Physicist," as
Toscanelli was called in Florence; but it may have been in youth or
early manhood, for aside from the fact that "all the world" knew and
reverenced the famous _savant_, there was the inclination arising from
a mutual interest in cosmography and astronomy. Toscanelli was the
foremost scientist of his age, and as he was born in 1397, at the time
Amerigo met him he must have been a venerable man. He lived, however,
until the year 1482, and as the younger man was in Florence during the
first forty years of his life, and the last thirty of Toscanelli's, it
is more than probable that their intercourse was long and friendly.

It is known, at least, that they were acquainted at the time the
learned doctor wrote Columbus, in 1474, and it does not require a
stretch of the imagination to fancy them together, and wondering what
effect that letter would have upon a man who entertained views similar
to their own. Columbus, it is thought, had then been pondering several
years over the possible discovery of land, presumably the eastern
coast of India, by sailing westward. "It was in the year 1474," writes
a modern historian, "that he had some correspondence with the Italian
savant, Toscanelli, regarding this discovery of land. A belief in such
a discovery was a natural corollary to the object which Prince Henry
of Portugal had in view by circumnavigating Africa, in order to find a
way to the countries of which Marco Polo had given golden accounts. It
was, in brief, to substitute for the tedious indirection of the
African route a direct western passage--a belief in the practicability
of which was drawn from a confidence in the sphericity of the
earth."[4]

Later in life Columbus seems to have forgotten his indebtedness to
Toscanelli, and "grew to imagine that he had been independent of the
influences of his time," ascribing his great discovery to the
inspiration of one chosen to accomplish the prophecy of Isaiah. But
the venerable Florentine had pondered the problem many years before
Columbus thought of it. "Some Italian writers even go to the extent of
asserting that the idea of a western passage to India originated with
Toscanelli, before it entered the mind of Columbus; and it is highly
probable that this was the case."

There is this in favor of Toscanelli: He was a learned man, while
Columbus was comparatively ignorant. He was then advanced in years,
and had given the greater portion of his life to the consideration of
just such questions, having had his attention called to them by
reading the travels of Marco Polo and comparing the information
therein contained with that derived from Eastern merchants who had
traded for many years in the Orient. He was not a sailor, nor a
corsair--though Columbus had been both, and had followed the sea for
years--but he was an astronomer, and he knew more of the starry
heavens, as well as of the earth beneath them, than any other
scientist alive. "It was Toscanelli who erected the famous solstitial
gnomon at the cathedral of Florence." For his learning he was honored,
when but thirty years of age, with the curatorship of the great
Florentine library, and for nearly sixty years thereafter he passed
his days amid books, charts, maps, and globes.

As a speculative philosopher, he had arrived at a correct conclusion
respecting the sphericity of the earth, and, with all the generosity
of a humanitarian, he freely communicated his ideas to others.
Columbus would have excluded every other human being from
participating in his thoughts, and arrogated to himself alone the
right to navigate westerly. This was the difference between the
broad-minded philosopher and the narrow-minded sailor who by accident
had stumbled upon a theory. The philosopher said, "It belongs to the
world!" The ignorant sailor cried, "It is mine!"

Toscanelli advanced the theory, but it was Columbus who put it to the
test, and reaped all the rewards, as well as suffered for the
mistakes. For mistakes there were, and the chief error lay in
supposing the country "discovered" by Columbus pertained to the
Indies. He died in that belief, and also Toscanelli, who passed away
ten years before the first voyage made to that land, subsequently
known as America. In one sense, perhaps, the Florentine doctor was the
means of that first voyage of Columbus having been accomplished, for
the chart he sent him made the distance between Europe and the western
country seem so short that it was undertaken with less reluctance, and
persisted in more stubbornly, than it might otherwise have been. But
this was a mistake in detail only, and not in theory. A line was
projected from about the latitude of Lisbon, on the western coast of
Europe, to the "great city of Quinsai," as described by Marco Polo, on
the opposite shores of Asia. This line was divided into twenty-six
spaces, of two hundred and fifty miles each, making the total distance
between the two points sixty-five hundred miles, which Toscanelli
supposed to be one-third of the earth's circumference.

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